tives of Ireland when Ireland was invaded by the Danes. Watch was
always kept on them, and upon the approach of an enemy a fire was
lighted to give notice to the next watch, and thus the intelligence was
quickly communicated through the country. SOME YEARS AGO, the common
people believed that these barrows were inhabited by fairies, or, as
they called them, by the GOOD PEOPLE. 'Oh, troth, to the best of my
belief, and to the best of my judgment and opinion,' said an elderly man
to the Editor, 'it was only the old people that had nothing to do, and
got together, and were telling stories about them fairies, but to the
best of my judgment there's nothing in it. Only this I heard myself not
very many years back from a decent kind of a man, a grazier, that, as he
was coming just FAIR AND EASY (QUIETLY) from the fair, with some cattle
and sheep, that he had not sold, just at the church of ---at an angle of
the road like, he was met by a good-looking man, who asked him where he
was going? And he answered, "Oh, far enough, I must be going all night."
"No, that you mustn't nor won't (says the man), you'll sleep with me the
night, and you'll want for nothing, nor your cattle nor sheep neither,
nor your BEAST (HORSE); so come along with me." With that the grazier
LIT (ALIGHTED) from his horse, and it was dark night; but presently he
finds himself, he does not know in the wide world how, in a fine house,
and plenty of everything to eat and drink; nothing at all wanting that
he could wish for or think of. And he does not MIND (RECOLLECT or KNOW)
how at last he falls asleep; and in the morning he finds himself lying,
not in ever a bed or a house at all, but just in the angle of the road
where first he met the strange man: there he finds himself lying on his
back on the grass, and all his sheep feeding as quiet as ever all round
about him, and his horse the same way, and the bridle of the beast over
his wrist. And I asked him what he thought of it; and from first to last
he could think of nothing, but for certain sure it must have been the
fairies that entertained him so well. For there was no house to see
anywhere nigh hand, or any building, or barn, or place at all, but only
the church and the MOTE (BARROW). There's another odd thing enough that
they tell about this same church, that if any person's corpse, that had
not a right to be buried in that churchyard, went to be burying there in
it, no, not all the men, women, or childer in al